How to collect more content with less surveys · Reevoo How to collect more content with less...

How to collect more content with less surveys

A six-step guide to a great customer

feedback strategy

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Reevoo How to collect more content with less surveys

As marketing channels multiply and audiences

diversify, finding content to fill those channels

becomes a marketer’s biggest point of pressure.

We’re forever chasing that perfect shot for social media; that five-star review that

completes a billboard, or that customer story that sparks an entire marketing

campaign. The same applies to feedback. The more data we can gather on who

our customers are and what they are thinking, the better.

And fair enough. Revolving your business around your customers is good practice.

Good, reliable customer feedback can improve product development and

fine-tune your service into a lean, mean, customer-pleasing machine.

But the problem is, now every company is asking for feedback. That means

customers are being asked to do a lot of surveys.

Modern business

thrives on content.

The more, the better.

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The result - a sad truth: people are tired of surveys, and are now less likely to

answer them. A recent survey by Customer Thermometer states that only 9% of

consumers take the time to answer feedback requests thoughtfully.

So if we want high quality, inspiring content, and lots of nutritious customer

feedback, we’ll have to get a lot smarter about how we ask for it.

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Modern business thrives on content.

The more, the better. 2

Chapter one

The advocacy economy 5

We're all amateur critics 6

The different feedback types 7

Chapter two

The consumer’s point of view 10

Pity the poor consumer 11

Survey fatigue 13

Is GDPR the excuse we need? 17

Chapter three

What's the point of all this content? 18

It's really not one-size-fits-all 19

Some case studies 20

Chapter four

Six secrets to a great customer

feedback strategy 26

Customer feedback checklist 28

People trust people 30

Contents

Chapter one

The advocacy economyLooking at our feedback-driven world

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The internet and social media

have turned us all into amateur

critics. Rating and reviewing all

aspects of life has become part

of our culture.

We rate a film on Rotten Tomatoes or leave a comment on Instagram without

giving it a second thought. Actually, if you think about it, there aren’t really many

business/customer interactions where you don’t get the opportunity to leave

some feedback for the business itself or for others who might end up treading

the same path.

Technology has only recently given us this opportunity, but it’s nothing new.

Giving and seeking feedback is just human nature. And it's obvious why.

We trust people. Moreover, we trust people like us.

Modern businesses who understand the human/tech balance have started to put

feedback at the heart of their business model. You wouldn’t dream of booking

an Airbnb before reading the reviews. Rating your Uber driver - and being rated

yourself - has become second nature.

Businesses request feedback in all kinds of ways. Let’s have a look at some of them.

*Edelman Trust Barometer 2017

60% of consumers say they trust "people like them"

as very credible sources of information (more

than any other source)*

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1. Calling or texting customers

Some businesses still rely on cold-calling customers to solicit feedback.

Others follow up customer service calls with a text message. Either way, it’s quite

an intrusion to have your phone buzz - and these days, people screen their calls

and texts, so you might be left on read.

2. Email survey

An email sent after a customer has had enough time to use the product can

provide invaluable information on why a customer chose a brand and how they

heard about it. An email also strikes a good balance in the notification hierarchy

- most people check their email a few times a day, but don’t feel pressured or

annoyed when they get a solicitation.

Done badly, however, emails not only fail to get the results you’re after, but can

damage brand reputation or leave you unsubscribed from, after which you’ll have

a tough time ever getting another look in.

3. Online communities

Some customers will voluntarily join Facebook groups or forums dedicated to

brands where they are happy to answer questions or enter into discussions.

Businesses often keep these people coming back with offers or promotions as

they understand the value of high-quality feedback.

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3

2

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4. Social media monitoring

Businesses are increasingly “listening in” to what people are saying about their

brands on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

It also enables them to respond to negative comments before they spread, which

can happen quickly on social media. Brands can show their personality on social

media, but it’s also a bit of an echo chamber - and full of pranksters to boot.

Any insight from social media should be taken with a rather large grain of salt.

5. Feedback during checkout or in-store

This is a good way of getting real-time information on the in-store experience,

but customers are busy when they’re shopping, so voluntary feedback can be

hard to get.

6. Dedicated feedback forms on website

Feedback forms or email addresses provide customers with a way of making

complaints if they wish to. 54% of customers prefer this feedback method* to

interacting with customer service. But these kinds of systems will only attract

those who are motivated by an extreme experience - either good or bad.

To get a balanced view you have to contact people proactively.

*Optimunk, 2017

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6

5

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You’re probably using several

of these methods of collecting

feedback, and probably some

others as well.

You might have been using some of them for many years, while others may be newer.

But how well do your systems link up? Does every department in your company have

access to your customer feedback? Are you all looking at the same customer?

Have a look at the questions you’re asking your customers — do you really need

to ask them all? Do they add value or are they just part of a process?

It seems like business 101, but having a cohesive feedback system is harder than

it looks. Especially for legacy brands. A big bank or a car brand, for example, will

often be using old feedback systems alongside newer feedback technology which

doesn’t integrate with it.

Over time, their feedback machine grows into a clunky, many-headed monster

with lots of different platforms and moving parts.

Despite loads of data coming in, it’s very hard to synthesise it or pinpoint specific

issues. Customers will be sent one survey if they telephone customer service and

another if they go through the website. Product reviews, meanwhile, might be

incompatible with in-store feedback or social media scraping.

Data is only as powerful as its uses. And if you’re reading this, we’re guessing

you’re finding it harder and harder to make sense of it all.

Chapter two

The consumer’s point of viewLooking at survey fatigue

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Pity the poor consumer.

Buy underwear online and an

email plops into their inbox

asking them to rate their

“shopping experience”.

At the supermarket, groceries come supplemented with a “How did we do today?”

card. Phone their mobile company, and a set of questions gauging the caller’s

satisfaction arrive afterwards by text. They can’t even visit the theatre or go on

holiday without being subjected to a survey in the foyer or departure hall.

Quite simply, consumers are being bombarded with surveys. If they answered

them all, it would be an (unpaid) full-time job. It’s no wonder more and more

consumers duck below the parapet and ignore the lot.

Ironically, customers are being told that these surveys are there to help improve

their experience - when in reality, pestering them for feedback often makes them

think less of the brand in question. Worse still, people are being dropped into

generic marketing email lists after writing a review - providing customers with a

continual reminder of what that brand thinks of them.

*Campaigner, 2017

49% of consumers state that they

receive too many marketing

messages from companies*

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How did we get into this mess? Brands knew that customer feedback was gold dust. They figured that if their

customers took time to share their opinion of their product or service, they would

feel more connected to the brand.

The advent of emails and texts meant that it was easier than ever for brands to

reach their customers. So they started contacting them. A lot.

Customers became overloaded by requests for surveys, and started ignoring

them. The more they ignored them, the more they got sent.

So that’s how we got here — slap bang in the middle of the perfect survey storm.

*Campaigner, 2017

51% of consumers prefer to hear from

brands once a month or less*

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You know things are bad when

the guy who invented this type

of survey is sick of them.

Fred Reichhold was an executive at Bain&Co when he came up with the idea of

a short set of questions to assess customer loyalty in 2003. “How likely are you

to recommend X?” subsequently became one of the most common questions

customers got asked.

In 2016, realising he’d created a monster, Reichhold told Bloomberg: “The instant

we have a technology to minimize surveys, I’m the first one on that bandwagon.”

It's worth noting here that there are two types of survey fatigue:

1. Survey response fatigue - people getting fed up of taking surveys and not

opting in to take them.

2. Survey taking fatigue - people abandoning surveys after starting because they

take too long.

*Pew Research Centre, 2015

52%

80%

won't complete a survey that takes

longer than 3 minutes*

of people abandon a survey

halfway through*

contents

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So how and when

can we contact people to avoid

contributing to survey fatigue?


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If asking for feedback is

annoying, what happens when

a brand wants amazing user-

generated content?

First, you do your research on how and when to contact people.

• According to Customer Thermometer, 74% of online buyers stated that

they’d be most likely to provide feedback in the form of online surveys and

feedback forms.

• Their preferred channel of communication is email.

• Customers prefer to give feedback straight after a complaint was resolved.

• Otherwise, the best time to ask for feedback is after the customer has had

time to use the product (this changes per product).

• When it comes to customer reviews, we're constantly testing and optimising

in order to maintain our response rates - you can't assume that what you

have will work forever.

• Direct subject lines, a clear value proposition in the body of the email and

thought through CTAs all impact response rates.

contents

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Reevoo Space for ebook titleReevoo How to collect more content with less surveys

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automotive manufacturers financial services retail travel

Reviews collected for every 100 requests* Conversion rate for review readers*

10 2550 15 3020 35 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.50

>=1

>=10

>=25

>=75

>=110

*Reevoo data, 2015

>=250

conversion rate

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Is GDPR the excuse you need

to get started?

The General Data Protection

Regulation (GDPR) is stirring up

a lot of stress for marketers, but

it really needn’t.

Sure - there’s a lot of work to be done. But it’s a good chance to reassess your

processes and ‘clean house’. Best of all, if you’ve allocated budget to GDPR prep,

you can be thorough and come out with some really cool new initiatives.

You probably know this already, but you’ll need to change the way you collect

consent from your customers to contact them. Come with something a bit

different and full of value and you’re on the way to creating a community.

Download your GDPR checklist here.

A warning:

GDPR shouldn't be an excuse to move to an open reviews system. As surveys

have mushroomed, so have fake reviews. 5.4% of people admitted they’ve

written a fake review online in 2017, up from 4% in 2014. 75% of people are

concerned about reading fake reviews online*

At Reevoo, we ensure that all our respondents are genuine customers. This

means that the reviews are trustworthy, but also that our feedback request fits

into that customer's journey - less invasive and more relevant. Can you really

expect good content or honest feedback if you don’t solicit it properly?

* Reevoo/FlyResearch, 2017

http://bit.ly/2Gg01Kk

Chapter three

What's the point of all

this content?Looking at the business benefits

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It’s important to remember

that we’re trying to collect

all of this stuff for a reason.

Now, this reason isn’t a

one-size-fits-all thing.

It’s different things for different industries or businesses.

Once you know exactly what you’re trying to achieve, you can start working out

how to collect the data and content that serve that goal.

Having an end goal in mind before you start asking for feedback is great for a

few reasons:

• It keeps your eye on the prize (the prize being your main business objectives)

• It stops you being annoying and bugging your customers for the sake of it

• It helps you take actions later (but we’ll get to that)

The businesses we help generally fall into one - or all - of these camps.

Think about which one you’re in.

Have a look at the Kia case study here

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I want quantifiable, reliable data that I can use to improve the way my business works and serves customers.

Ok, great! Here’s what you probably want to be collecting:

• NPS score (how likely customers are to recommend you)

• Service data on your individual stores or branches (if you have them)

• Scores on all your products, plus their individual facets (like battery life or

value for money for example)

• Customer opinions that provide insight into everything from product

development to customer service

And here’s some stuff you probably don’t need to annoy your customers with:

• How much do you love our brand? Tweet us with the hashtag

#IReallyLoveInteractingWithBrands

• Please complete this 15min survey to have a chance of winning a £5 voucher!

http://bit.ly/2DWtI0F

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*Reevoo data, 2015

We’ll share a few tips on how to really do this well in our customer feedback

strategy checklist. But for now, all you need to think about is what you actually

want to know.

Not just, ‘would people give our hotel 10 out of 10’... More, ‘how did guests find

the breakfast? What did they enjoy most about the location? What do they think

we should improve?'

The benefits...

Don’t think that just because you’re collecting data, you can’t see some of

those juicy sales benefits that those more glamorous guys in the marketing

team seem to be providing.

Collecting and displaying opinions of your brand, product scores or customer

photos actually lead to huge uplifts in engagement and conversion.

increase in conversion rate

for Reevoo clients who display

genuine customer reviews*

2.7x

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I want a constant stream of reviews to display at the point of purchase.

This is the most common scenario we see, and unfortunately it’s also the one we

see messed up the most.

That’s a real shame, because when it’s handled right, the voice of the customer is

one of the most powerful voices in commerce.

Reviews are more than just words on a webpage - they’re social proof. Evidence

that you deliver a great customer service and aren’t afraid to let those customers

share honestly.

So when we see a website where a popular product has 3 reviews, the content

lacks depth and structure (scores for different facets, filterable customer

segments) or it's full of fakes or spam - that makes us really mad.

Have a look at the Ebuyer case study here

http://bit.ly/1Av3Ssy

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* Reevoo/FlyResearch, 2017

So what’s the right way to collect? We’ll explain more in the last section, but a few

things to remember:

• Only real reviews will do. Fakes are bad for business. And bad reviews are good

for business - 70% of people are 'suspicious' when only seeing positive reviews*

• More is better, always

• Reviews should be as granular as possible - split into product and customer

service, and each individual facet of the products you sell

• Customer Q&A engines are also a great help here

The benefits...

A great reviews system is well worth what it costs to set up.

For instance, 72 hours after going live with Reevoo, Ebuyer collected 60,000

reviews overtaking the 40,000 reviews collected by the company’s in-house

solution over 4 years.

of people trust what

companies say about

their own products*

Only

32%

Have a look at the Titan case study here

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I want inspiring content I can inject along the customer journey to strengthen my brand.

This is the fun stuff. You’ve probably tried to do this through an Instagram

hashtag or offering people prizes to take photos or videos with your products.

But here’s a bombshell: it’s not worth it. Not that way, at least.

It’s far too expensive for what you get - and once you bring money into the

equation, all credibility goes out the window.

The CMA are cracking down on influencers anyway - not surprising when 38%

of marketers say they are unable to tell whether influencer activity actually drives

sales, while 86% are unsure how influencers calculate their fees.

* Rakuten Marketing, 2017

http://bit.ly/2GduM2h

Experiences from Titan

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The good news is: the real influencers are right under your nose. All they need is a

little push. Oh - and they work for free. Actually, they pay you for the privilege.

They’re your customers.

By reaching out to them at the right time and in the right context, you can collect

some incredible content.

We’ll show you exactly how we collected all this in the final chapter.

But first, let’s get you a bit more excited.

The benefits...

Aside from the obvious (this content is super impressive), inspiring content

like you see on the left does wonders for conversion and loyalty.

Titan Travel saw a 34% uplift in time on site on pages that contained engaging

user-generated content.

Chapter four

Six secrets to a great

customer feedback strategyA checklist for reducing your surveys and increasing your content

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Now we’re ready to put some

of the principles we’ve learned

into action.

Let’s remind ourselves why we’re here:

• Most current methods of collecting feedback are ineffective. They’re too

vague, can’t be actioned - and often the outputs don’t even match up with

your company’s internal processes, so different departments of the company

can have wildly different views on how they’re performing.

• Businesses tend to add a new method of collecting feedback instead of

updating the ones that already exist. So the same customer ends up getting a

few different requests for feedback from the same company, sometimes even

about the same product.

• The data you collect from your customers - whether it’s satisfaction scores or

stories and photos - delivers huge business benefits if used in the right way.

• Consolidating all your internal feedback and your inspiring content collection

into one touchpoint CAN be done - in fact, it’s pretty easy if you follow some

general principles.

So what are those principles?

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1. Link every question to an action

Don’t just ask questions for the sake of it. Your questions should always link back to

something within the business you can change. What will you do with the answers or

the content?

2. Be specific

Don’t just ask generic questions - ask about specific details of what you sell and

how you sell it. You can use this feedback to fine-tune your products and the

customer experience.

3. Start with the most important business issues andwork outwards

Some issues can be solved with feedback. Others, like perception issues, can be solved

by using it.

4. Align your business internally before you begin collecting

If marketing sees in the reviews that there’s a product issue, but the product team don’t

want to hear about it, the whole project is a waste. All departments need to be able to

see (and care about) all of the feedback.

* Google/Galaxy, 2015

5. Promote the customer’s voice to board level

Before you start, agree on one thing - the customer’s voice is the most important. Treat

them as a consultant brought in by the CEO - what they say pretty much goes. Some

pride might have to be swallowed here, so make sure your internal environment is

supportive and judgement-free. No picking on someone if their initiatives aren't going

down well with customers.

6. Remember where different types of content should go - then break the rules

Hopefully, you’ll get to a point where you’re collecting lots of different types of content

- for example NPS scores, product reviews, peer-to-peer Q&A and photos of people

using your product in quirky ways.

There are prescribed ways to use this content - NPS is used for internal benchmarking,

reviews and Q&A go on the checkout page, and the quirky photos are great for social

media. But that doesn’t have to be the end of it.

Those photos would look great in your next ad campaign. The peer-to-peer Q&A would

be super helpful for your customer service teams. And the product ratings can be printed

and placed in-store - after all, 68% of smartphone shoppers use their phone to search for

information about an item they're looking to buy whilst in store.

Customer feedback strategy checklist

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"The instant we have a technology to

minimize surveys, I'm the first one on

that bandwagon."


FRED REICHHELDFounder and partner of Bain & Company(Leading pioneer in the use of feedback surveys)

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People trust people. At the start of this ebook we talked about getting more natural with the way we

request content and feedback from customers.

By sharing our philosophy and a few simple rules, hopefully we've convinced

you that:

- NO, you don't need to keep sending out a bunch of surveys just because

that’s what you’ve done before.

- YES, you should be challenging what information is actually important to

your business.

- YES, consumers have evolved - how you get their feedback (and what you

do with it) needs to evolve too.

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Reevoo Space for ebook title

+44 (0)20 7654 0350 | [email protected]

If you'd like help with your feedback and

user-generated content collection, visit

reevoo.com

https://www.reevoo.com/en/

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